Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I get your point. But I don't think the USA or other empires are going on any NAZI-like pacifications and conquests anytime soon, as Civic Hero advocates. If the USA attacks other nations and peoples, even for its own gain, it is careful of the scale, and also to couch it in terms of self-defense or boosting democracy, and to have an exit or scale-down strategy if troops are sent.

I am aware that the New Left somehow imagine the US "Corporatocracy" to be some sort of "Fourth Reich." But that is not in our DNA, even at our most snake-oil crass level of sleaziness. Our system's trajectory is toward a farce, not a true empire. People try to portray the relatively minor military actions of the past 12 years to be a major war. That is ignorant. The past 12 years have been a mere fraction of what occurred for us 1941 - 45, and a minuscule fraction versus what happened globally 1931 - 1945. No, we are not the Fourth Reich and never will be. When the SHTF, we will be, relatively speaking, the Hobbits.

Sounds like some people have been playing too much Civilization (the game)... and probably with the nuance (not) of Civ II at that.

How Cynic Hero imagines a spiritually-enlightened meritocracy to be derived from what would likely be decades of wanton militarism and conquest and "pacification", is beyond me. It sounds like "after we implement the dictatorship of the proletariat for enough time, the state shall whither away and all will live in equality and justice." Or for the objects of our conquests and "pacifications", "the beatings will continue until morale improves". No mind whatsoever to the actual effects horrific actions have on not only the victims, but the perpetrators as well. More atrocity in the world will make all worse people for it. People who are trained to be "ruthlessly efficient" at "unparalleled harshness" one moment aren't going to magically turn into people who are lovers of liberty and humanity the next. Same goes for leaders ordering such, or society as a whole which (God forbid) goes along with it....

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

I am aware that the New Left somehow imagine the US "Corporatocracy" to be some sort of "Fourth Reich." But that is not in our DNA, even at our most snake-oil crass level of sleaziness. Our system's trajectory is toward a farce, not a true empire. People try to portray the relatively minor military actions of the past 12 years to be a major war. That is ignorant. The past 12 years have been a mere fraction of what occurred for us 1941 - 45, and a minuscule fraction versus what happened globally 1931 - 1945. No, we are not the Fourth Reich and never will be. When the SHTF, we will be, relatively speaking, the Hobbits.

Nobody could have reasonably predicted that a country with the most sophisticated heritage of cultural achievement, one in which principles of the liberal enlightenment were well entrenched, one that had recently endured a meat-grinder war and whose people generally didn't want another, and one in which the political precedents ranged from democracy to enlightened monarchy could end up with a bigoted tyrant with a mad desire for conquest -- until one horrible person took over 80 years ago. He couldn't be "that bad". He wasn't; he was far worse. He reputed every modern trend except in technological advancement, police repression, and media manipulation.

Our tycoons, executives, heirs, and big landowners are on the whole no wiser or more moral on the whole than the economic elites who believed that they bought a compliant stooge when they paid some nationalistic demagogue with some cranky ideas. Our populace is as addicted to vile entertainments as the audiences of places like the Kit-Kat Club of Cabaret. All that is missing is political violence and an economic downturn as intense and prolonged as that of 1929-1932... and don't fool yourself -- some people want economic policies sure to bring such a downturn about. Fire sales of those who never experienced a fire but were compelled to sell for what little is offered are extremely profitable to those people last to have cash.

Not in our DNA? Germans are about as typical white Europeans as there are -- and as white Americans are. This is a Crisis Era, and all sorts of cruelty and insanity are possible, often in unlikely places.

One need not be in any New Left to find an economic order that serves 5% of the people and compels 90% to suffer for their greed abominable. America needs major economic reforms to avoid becoming the sort of place that people want to leave.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I get your point. But I don't think the USA or other empires are going on any NAZI-like pacifications and conquests anytime soon, as Civic Hero advocates. If the USA attacks other nations and peoples, even for its own gain, it is careful of the scale, and also to couch it in terms of self-defense or boosting democracy, and to have an exit or scale-down strategy if troops are sent.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

I am aware that the New Left somehow imagine the US "Corporatocracy" to be some sort of "Fourth Reich." But that is not in our DNA, even at our most snake-oil crass level of sleaziness. Our system's trajectory is toward a farce, not a true empire. People try to portray the relatively minor military actions of the past 12 years to be a major war. That is ignorant. The past 12 years have been a mere fraction of what occurred for us 1941 - 45, and a minuscule fraction versus what happened globally 1931 - 1945. No, we are not the Fourth Reich and never will be. When the SHTF, we will be, relatively speaking, the Hobbits.

The corporate state would be dismantled in the restorationist revolution since it is fundamentally incompatible with the meritocratic and communal-entreprenueral society supervised by the military that I've been advocating. Once the state has been reorganized at home; society trained and hardened enough and the military beefed up to sufficient levels to render our nation invulnerable to attack, this would be followed by the first the vassalization of latin america and then the pacification of the middle east and north africa. After the pacification is complete, adminstrative cities and metropolises would be built and populated by anglophone, latin american, indian, african, and israeli settlers, although construction of these proposed cities would be carried out by arab muslim labor.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Nobody could have reasonably predicted that a country with the most sophisticated heritage of cultural achievement, one in which principles of the liberal enlightenment were well entrenched, one that had recently endured a meat-grinder war and whose people generally didn't want another, and one in which the political precedents ranged from democracy to enlightened monarchy could end up with a bigoted tyrant with a mad desire for conquest -- until one horrible person took over 80 years ago. He couldn't be "that bad". He wasn't; he was far worse. He reputed every modern trend except in technological advancement, police repression, and media manipulation.

Our tycoons, executives, heirs, and big landowners are on the whole no wiser or more moral on the whole than the economic elites who believed that they bought a compliant stooge when they paid some nationalistic demagogue with some cranky ideas. Our populace is as addicted to vile entertainments as the audiences of places like the Kit-Kat Club of Cabaret. All that is missing is political violence and an economic downturn as intense and prolonged as that of 1929-1932... and don't fool yourself -- some people want economic policies sure to bring such a downturn about. Fire sales of those who never experienced a fire but were compelled to sell for what little is offered are extremely profitable to those people last to have cash.

Not in our DNA? Germans are about as typical white Europeans as there are -- and as white Americans are. This is a Crisis Era, and all sorts of cruelty and insanity are possible, often in unlikely places.

One need not be in any New Left to find an economic order that serves 5% of the people and compels 90% to suffer for their greed abominable. America needs major economic reforms to avoid becoming the sort of place that people want to leave.

"White America" will soon be a completely obsolete notion. Again, we evolve toward a farce. We have no equivalent players to the players of the supposed "Wiemar Republic" or its successor. The whole "OWS" meme of a "plutocracy" is shattered by the harsh reality that our system has so many owners no one can name them all. If you have an IRA or 401K you are among them.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Not in our DNA? Germans are about as typical white Europeans as there are -- and as white Americans are.

And Germans are, in fact, the largest single ethnic group in America.

The Fundamental Goal of restorationism apart from the geopolitical aims mentioned in earlier posts, would be the creation of a new kind of human. This new human would be at its simplest description a warrior-scholar. These would be cultivated by the creation of a meritocratic education system supervised by the military coupled with the option of more thorough military training and joining the military, for those who are so inclined, although society would make strong hints that this is the desired career path. Basically academic education followed by technical education parrallel to the option of the military would serve as the two pillars of the meritocratic system. The best and brightest of these would be channeled into administrative positions and it is these cohorts that would gradually ascend through the ranks. The Same system would operate in the military fields as well. This administrative caste would form the elite which would rule the nation. This elite would be drawn regardless of race and income group and from both sexes.

The everyday life of the average child in america would in many aspects be unchanged from that of the present day, children would learn basic courses and make friends and socialize just as they have before, when they reach their teenage years they would play sports, be on teams etc. Such events like proms, homecoming and pep rallies would still exist. However a major addition would be camp-life in which students of both sexes would learn survival and emergency self-reliance skills. Education would generally be of co-ed organization. Regrding sex-education, students would be informed but strongly uncouraged to avoid sexual activity before age 16. Religion would be kept out of the school system, and other secular institutions, however society would strongly lean toward christianity, in particular catholicism, the state would form political connections with the papacy, albeit with some compromises to accomodate secular life. The general encouraged religion would be catholic christianity with a political concordat between the government and the papacy. Regarding the education system, similar reforms to that mentioned earlier would also be carried out in the latin american satellite states as well.

Citizens would be encouraged by the government with various land grants and tax exemptions to participate in populating the administrative centers and settlement cities, towns, and outposts following the general pacification of the middle east. As mentioned earlier these settlers would be joined by other anglophone, latin america, indian, african, and israeli settlers. Over time they would culturally mix with the native arab populations to create a reformed culture in the middle east. This culture would gradually diffuse with anglophone, latin american, indian, african, and others to create a new universal culture and superstate.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

"White America" will soon be a completely obsolete notion. Again, we evolve toward a farce. We have no equivalent players to the players of the supposed "Wiemar Republic" or its successor. The whole "OWS" meme of a "plutocracy" is shattered by the harsh reality that our system has so many owners no one can name them all. If you have an IRA or 401K you are among them.

A significant IRA or a 401K -- or really savings of any kind -- has become a luxury in a country in which job security is a travesty and those who work except at or near the economic apex are typically overworked and underpaid. The Master Class wants it that way.

Yes, America is a plutocracy, and wealth and income are both concentrated about as one would expect under a fascist dictatorship. Our elites demand suffering for greed that borders on economic sadism, and they have no idea of when to stop. They want competition from small business to go extinct. They want the government reduced to enforcers of their will and perhaps the means of conquering new markets and securing raw materials.

Note well that middle-class non-whites, non-Anglos, non-Christians, and non-straights voted heavily Democratic. Maybe they can see a menace that poor white people don't see.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

"White America" will soon be a completely obsolete notion. Again, we evolve toward a farce. We have no equivalent players to the players of the supposed "Wiemar Republic" or its successor. The whole "OWS" meme of a "plutocracy" is shattered by the harsh reality that our system has so many owners no one can name them all. If you have an IRA or 401K you are among them.

This denies the internal value. It's like saying "almost everyone has money, therefore nobody is poor." Sure, lots of people have IRA's and 401's, having the account isn't the same has having millions of dollars in it. And even of the people who manage to get that "1%" label, very few of them have controlling interest.

Most investors don't have controlling interests and the ones that do are the most rich. Nobody is saying "there should be no millionaires", what's being said is more "if there are going to be millionaires, there shouldn't be anyone with nothing, and further more that crown don't make you prince."

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

The Fundamental Goal of restorationism apart from the geopolitical aims mentioned in earlier posts, would be the creation of a new kind of human. This new human would be at its simplest description a warrior-scholar. These would be cultivated by the creation of a meritocratic education system supervised by the military coupled with the option of more thorough military training and joining the military, for those who are so inclined, although society would make strong hints that this is the desired career path. Basically academic education followed by technical education parrallel to the option of the military would serve as the two pillars of the meritocratic system. The best and brightest of these would be channeled into administrative positions and it is these cohorts that would gradually ascend through the ranks. The Same system would operate in the military fields as well. This administrative caste would form the elite which would rule the nation. This elite would be drawn regardless of race and income group and from both sexes.

The everyday life of the average child in america would in many aspects be unchanged from that of the present day, children would learn basic courses and make friends and socialize just as they have before, when they reach their teenage years they would play sports, be on teams etc. Such events like proms, homecoming and pep rallies would still exist. However a major addition would be camp-life in which students of both sexes would learn survival and emergency self-reliance skills. Education would generally be of co-ed organization. Regrding sex-education, students would be informed but strongly uncouraged to avoid sexual activity before age 16. Religion would be kept out of the school system, and other secular institutions, however society would strongly lean toward christianity, in particular catholicism, the state would form political connections with the papacy, albeit with some compromises to accomodate secular life. The general encouraged religion would be catholic christianity with a political concordat between the government and the papacy. Regarding the education system, similar reforms to that mentioned earlier would also be carried out in the latin american satellite states as well.

Citizens would be encouraged by the government with various land grants and tax exemptions to participate in populating the administrative centers and settlement cities, towns, and outposts following the general pacification of the middle east. As mentioned earlier these settlers would be joined by other anglophone, latin america, indian, african, and israeli settlers. Over time they would culturally mix with the native arab populations to create a reformed culture in the middle east. This culture would gradually diffuse with anglophone, latin american, indian, african, and others to create a new universal culture and superstate.

My fantasy for restorationism would be to send all Republicans to a giant re-education camp.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

My fantasy for restorationism would be to send all Republicans to a giant re-education camp.

I Have no love lost for the republicans that much either; but I want to know why do you assume that re-education camps would exist in a restorationist america?

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

I Have no love lost for the republicans that much either; but I want to know why do you assume that re-education camps would exist in a restorationist america?

For Muslims, of course!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

My fantasy for restorationism would be to send all Republicans to a giant re-education camp.

Which is why people with an ideology that demonizes the political opposition or any other class of citizens are too dangerous to be given that sort of power. One might hold a seance and ask the ghost of Chairman Mao about it, though. He seemed to have considered it an excellent idea.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Which is why people with an ideology that demonizes the political opposition or any other class of citizens are too dangerous to be given that sort of power. One might hold a seance and ask the ghost of Chairman Mao about it, though. He seemed to have considered it an excellent idea.

The older I get the more I appreciate the wisdom of our Founding Fathers on everything except slavery and women's rights. The definitive solution for slavery would not emerge for nearly fifty years after the Treaty of Paris (which would have been the British solution of abolition by buying slaves -- and such would have been far less costly than the American Civil War). Checks and balances are of course essential to a functioning Republic.

In this Crisis we see the threat of the merger of economic and political power, and we will almost certainly need to re-establish the separation of those two powers. We also see the potential for political power to gravitate to political bosses who have no responsibility to anyone else so long as their Party gets re-elected (and that could imply rigged elections). We will need significant changes in our political institutions if we are to avoid some self-inflicted calamity.

Most countries have some demons in their political heritage, and America is no exception. We have shown much tolerance for severe inequality in economic results. Subjection of people on the basis of race has the potential for a sick revival. We have had our share of wars, and military overkill has made America a particularly-dangerous adversary. Nations weed out their demons in a Crisis, lest the demons take over.

Let the monstrosity that one poster offers take charge, and America becomes the sort of entity against which a huge chunk of the world unites against so that non-Americans can keep their dignity. Such implies a war against America that could bring to our cities the sort of destruction even worse than that that cities like Tokyo, Dresden, and Warsaw... maybe even Hiroshima and Nagasaki... endured in the last Crisis Era.

We do not need a new humanity. We need to work with what we have. We need to rediscover what makes life glorious, which may need that more of us need to take the time to listen to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rioESHe9zj0

at the expense of some of the popular bilge. We need to restore the Great Books approach to undergraduate education so that our educated elite can believe in something nobler than single-malt whiskey and high-priced marques of automobile and so that people can get high-quality education at modest cost. (Just think about it -- Herbert Hoover was able to graduate from Stanford University by working at food service in a dining hall. Is Stanford a better college today than it was when Hoover was an undergraduate? What does the current, high-cost Multiversity do better than the old liberal-arts college except put its graduates deeply in debt?

We need more people who can accept that being an elementary-school teacher or being a small-town pastor who visits the sick and comforts the dying is better than making a megabucks salary for treating customers and subordinates badly for the profit of the firm. We need people who know that there is more to life than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll" -- like great books and music.

For the Right I offer this: an economy with a conscience makes a Lenin, Mao, or Castro irrelevant.

I dunno, the Stanford now doesn't have Hoover attending, so there is that as a plus.

However, in seriousness, though I agree with the majority of what you said. America is the only presidential system representative democracy that has continued to be a representative democracy instead of a puppet dictatorship. So we've done pretty good on a system that is typically doomed to fail.

However, when I look at our culture of nostalgia, especially in film with our remake-o-rama I can't help but think we're kinda throwing her a wake. And that's fine, I get it... I just wish we could move forward in a respectable direction.

Originally Posted by Kepi

I dunno, the Stanford now doesn't have Hoover attending, so there is that as a plus.

Hoover was a brilliant fellow. A very successful mining engineer, he translated the De Re Metallica into English. In and soon after World War I he led a humanitarian effort to feed the starving in the wake of the war. By most accounts he was a fine cabinet official. He was a poor President, partly because he did none of what one usually does to become President. He was not a high-ranking military officer; he was never elected to public office. He might have been a good President had he been a Governor first. He ran for the wrong political office in 1928.

I saw a ranking of US Presidents; Hoover was 35th-best and Dubya was 38th. Hoover at the least didn't get us into any wars.

America is the only presidential system representative democracy that has continued to be a representative democracy instead of a puppet dictatorship. So we've done pretty good on a system that is typically doomed to fail.

But the seams show now. For decades politicians knew the holes within the system -- notably that the political parties are unregulated -- and chose not to exploit them. Lee Atwater tested the seams some. Karl Rove tore them apart by driving an eighteen-wheeler through them. Grover Norquist is doing much the same.

The Founding Fathers clearly delineated the limits of political authority of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Those are the rightful branches of government -- with elected officials, Cabinet officers and judges appointed by one branch of government for approval by another branch of government, and persons hired by the government with unambiguous boundaries of authority. Political parties are not branches of government. Neither are economic front groups or their lobbyists.

Government by front groups with lobbyists as enforcers is a prospect for the next time that the Republican Party has the Presidency and both Houses of Congress. If that ever happens, American democracy is as much a sham as it is in China.

However, when I look at our culture of nostalgia, especially in film with our remake-o-rama I can't help but think we're kinda throwing her a wake. And that's fine, I get it... I just wish we could move forward in a respectable direction.

I was tempted to discuss cinema as the definitive art of the 20th century... and I must be terribly old-fashioned. I would rather see a well-scripted flick with a constrained budget than some blockbuster full of special effects. I realize that one would have to have a special effect to get "Richard Parker" into The Life of Pi. I didn't see the movie, but getting a tiger into a boat would be dangerous proposition. Have a large dog as a stand-in and then replace the dog with a tiger? That's what I would have expected. A dog can do about everything that a tiger can do except kill and eat people.

I just saw a movie trailer for a new Lone Ranger epic, and if you are at all familiar with the old TV series... it was a Western, and it was clearly low-budget. Plots were simple, and there was no room for special effects that would have drawn attention away from simple story lines and the predictable categorization of people other than the Lone Ranger and Tonto as crass villains and helpless victims with the Lone Ranger and Tonto as outsmarting and then overpowering the Wild West outlaws and corrupt public officials.

So that shouldn't require lots of special effects. Right? Wrong! The trailer is full of fires and explosions. If I were a film maker I'd limit them because they distract from story-telling. What shocks me is that Disney is doing this. CGI is acceptable for creating the impossible-but necessary, creating implausibilities for comic effect, or of course protecting the lives and health of cast and crew or preventing real destruction of property. It is a tawdry substitute for story-telling that is the essence of cinema.

When it comes to film I really think that CGI has been a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, movies like Amelie, which are extremely effects intensive (though you wouldn't think about it, every single frame of that movie is digitally altered) but subtle would have required a much larger budget, really benefit. Not that Jeunet needed the assist, Delicatesson was made in '91 and I think it was colored nondigitally, but it makes this process more accessible to everyone.

Meanwhile, though, budgets mean constraints and constraints tend to inspire creativity. Not that it's high art, but let's talk Indiana Jones. The first 3 movies were good fun. The fourth was not. Why? I don't know for sure, but I have a hunch that it's not because Lucas didn't want to have Indy ride any atomic bomb out in a refridgerator, but because he couldn't afford to make it look good. Same with the Die Hard franchise. It wasn't that they didn't want to make a car drive into a helicopter, in 1-3, it's that the lacked the ability to make it look good.

Another good example would be The Star Trek Films. You've got the original series movies, of which 3 are good, one is alright, one is boring, and one is bad. With possibly the exception of the bad one, they're all clearly Star Trek movies. They have the feel of the show that spawned them. The movies for the next generation, whether it's one that's liked (say, First Contact (for the record, I hate it but I'm not with the general consensus there)) or one that's hated (say, Nemisis) felt way more like action movies than they did Star Trek. Not that Trek didn't have good action at times, but these movies just feel hokey sometimes with the extent they take it to.

Now, it's not that I hate effects, or that no good movies have been made in the era of cheap CGI/effects, but it's that maybe style is shaped by constraint, and that when you have no constraints, it produces poor style.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

We need people who know that there is more to life than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll" -- like great books and music.

In that case, we need something other than the present Democratic Party (who have "updated" it slightly - to Sex, Drugs & Gun Control).

Perhaps a "Christian Democratic" party - and in the Latin American sense, not the Italo-German sense.

The problem with baby boomer and early xer ideologues like pbrower and classic xer is that they are wedded to standard liberalism and conservatism. Only restorationism is capable of uniting the nation around a single purpose, only restorationism is capable of turning america into an unstoppable force. The civil military order is to create the backbone for the new civic order, the meritocratic education system is to provide equal opportunity for all with the best and brightest of the successive generations becoming the elite. The return to universal christianity, the embracing of communal spiritualism and the idea of a society of friends and countrymen who bond together through struggles abroad as well as the entrepreneural state is to provide an ideological basis for the reorganization of first american society and then later the world which would provide the basis for the next several centuries of world history. The vassalization of latin america and the pacification of the middle east is to eliminate any possible avenues from which foreign powers could use to launch large scale campaigns against america in times of war. This would also boost our security and prosperity by bringing large-scale industrial and other resources into the american sphere of control. This would be consolidated in the mideast in particular by the creation of settlement zones and administrative metropolises and settlement cities populated by american, anglophone, latin american, indian, african and israeli settlers; although construction of the proposed cities would be carried out by arab muslim labor. The middle east in general would be divided into military regions governed by military governors, these military governors would administer total control over the public and civil life in the pacified middle east. Returning to the meritocratic education system, the final goal would be the creation of an elite of the best and brightest who achieve their standing by merit and by heroic accomplishments this class would include those of all races and of both sexes, they would serve as an administrative caste which would be learned in the knowledge of foreign culture but also be educated in restorationist principles, over the following generation this class would govern the various parts of the american sphere of influence with a fair but stern hand.

Originally Posted by Kepi

When it comes to film I really think that CGI has been a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, movies like Amelie, which are extremely effects intensive (though you wouldn't think about it, every single frame of that movie is digitally altered) but subtle would have required a much larger budget, really benefit. Not that Jeunet needed the assist, Delicatesson was made in '91 and I think it was colored nondigitally, but it makes this process more accessible to everyone.

Amelie is beautiful. CGI effects aided the story line, which one rarely sees today.

Meanwhile, though, budgets mean constraints and constraints tend to inspire creativity. Not that it's high art, but let's talk Indiana Jones. The first 3 movies were good fun. The fourth was not. Why? I don't know for sure, but I have a hunch that it's not because Lucas didn't want to have Indy ride any atomic bomb out in a refrigerator, but because he couldn't afford to make it look good.

OK, Raiders of the Lost Ark succeeds at the least as a guilty pleasure because the special effects seem to be God Himself. One knows that the Nazis are in trouble when the swastika emblem on the wooden crate box containing the Ark burns off -- a simple effect, but one very effective. The Nazi characters are well developed as evil. The climactic scene in which the Nazis find what the Ark is all about begins with a blasphemous effort of Nazis to use the power of God for an evil purpose. The "priest" intones a prayer... and I don't know the meaning of that prayer because it is in Hebrew and I don't understand it. But if it is the sort of prayer that one would expect from a Temple priest in a time of distress to a Jewish community, it probably includes such phrases as "O Lord, deliver Your chosen people in their time of greatest need. Give strength to the just and smite Your enemies, the cruel and perverse who show contempt for Your Holy laws". Such would be suicidal for Nazis, the epitome of cruelty, injustice, and evil, people in uttermost contempt of Judaism and interested in the Ark only for its power; they would be asking for the Judgment of a God Who would gladly eliminate those who torment His People. I will stop there because describing the special effects that follow brings a spoiler. But we are discussing God Himself, and not even CGI effects could get His abilities right.

The Last Crusade? It works, probably because of the father figure (Sean Connery) that allows Indiana Jones to develop some of his character, and because of some remarkable struggles, but on the whole not as well. The Temple of Doom? Poverty isn't pretty, and the bad guys get dispatched by something not so divine. The Crystal Skull? The Soviet Union was at times nearly as evil as the Devil's Reich, but the story line confuses Stalinist evil with Khrushchev (inexcusable!), Soviet evil is mostly brainwashing, and the likelihood that a dedicated Marxist-Leninist like the female villain could get enamored of space aliens is absurd. The series is exploitative, but one can make an exploitative movie with exaggerated villains and get a satisfying experience. The Crystal Skull is exploitative, confusing, and absurd -- and it fails.

... Maybe at some time, one might introduce Indiana Jones' grandson or granddaughter in a cosmic struggle with pure evil this time associated with a country whose name begins I-R-A... whether the last letter is N or Q, one might get an excellent story line. Maybe some Arab filmmaker will make a similar movie, and the source of evil that the swashbuckling hero contends will be a country whose name begins I-R-A (with the letter S between the I and R).

Same with the Die Hard franchise. It wasn't that they didn't want to make a car drive into a helicopter, in 1-3, it's that the lacked the ability to make it look good.

I never saw it, so I can;t say anything about it.

Another good example would be The Star Trek Films. You've got the original series movies, of which 3 are good, one is alright, one is boring, and one is bad. With possibly the exception of the bad one, they're all clearly Star Trek movies. They have the feel of the show that spawned them. The movies for the next generation, whether it's one that's liked (say, First Contact (for the record, I hate it but I'm not with the general consensus there)) or one that's hated (say, Nemisis) felt way more like action movies than they did Star Trek. Not that Trek didn't have good action at times, but these movies just feel hokey sometimes with the extent they take it to.

I -- for people still hungry for Star Trek it was all that was available.
II and III -- epic
IV -- excellent comedy morphing into an adventure... and making the transition well. The transition is difficult, and if the transition from one pattern to another isn't done well the movie fails (in my opinion, Seabiscuit, which does not rely upon special effects).
V -- awful.
VI -- OK, at the least tying together some loose ends in the Star Trek universe. Give the Klingons some humanity.

Now, it's not that I hate effects, or that no good movies have been made in the era of cheap CGI/effects, but it's that maybe style is shaped by constraint, and that when you have no constraints, it produces poor style.

For the effects to work for me they must be necessary to the story. The technology did not exist in the Golden Age of Cinema. That explains why the stage magic behind The Wizard of Oz was so amazing in its time. The studio bosses insisted upon making movies that satisfied audiences well enough that they would be back the next week. The rule was "Make it work! You have one chance, and you find it!"

The absolute wrong type of bipolar compromise occured in the supreme court this week; this corrupt court had yesterday declared that innocent blacks, hispanics and others can be denied their right to vote. Now they they turn around and say that gay marriage, a totally unnatural state of affairs is perfectly okay. So blacks and hispanics are bad but homosexuality is OK. These justices mock god, they spit on the holy texts. Sodomy has always been punished by fire, now this court declares that they permit the worst perversities while denying justice to the less fortunate.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

The absolute wrong type of bipolar compromise occured in the supreme court this week; this corrupt court had yesterday declared that innocent blacks, hispanics and others can be denied their right to vote. Now they they turn around and say that gay marriage, a totally unnatural state of affairs is perfectly okay. So blacks and hispanics are bad but homosexuality is OK. These justices mock god, they spit on the holy texts. Sodomy has always been punished by fire, now this court declares that they permit the worst perversities while denying justice to the less fortunate.

The "natural" course of politics has often become "majority of the majority". Civil society requires that all adults have an equal chance to participate in the political process, and that a majority has no right to silence the minority, exploit the majority, or render it politically irrelevant indefinitely. "Majority of the majority" politics becomes increasingly narrow until the semblance to democracy disappears. Bolshevism operated that way. The minority voice is essential if We the People are to have democracy. Had it been up to white people only, we would not have the President that we have.

The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act are the legislation necessary for enforcing the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.

Constitutional government with responsibility to the People but not generating into lynch-mob rule is itself unnatural. That said, a steel mill or an oil refinery is unnatural, too, but we manifestly need them both for the lives that we know. Laws against lynching may keep us from doing to some suspected child molester what we might want to do -- like incinerate him alive. The rule of law may be inconvenient, but it is necessary.

Now what is your excuse for your homophobic bigotry? God really did make Adam and Steve, too -- and at times he made them gay. He also made heather's "two mommies" -- and made them lesbians. I don't understand what causes homosexuality, but I have known enough gays to recognize that they are not bad people for being homosexual. I have made friends with gays. Of course we both have our pants and zippers up and at the time. Sex with men? Maybe I am best described sexually as a lesbian trapped in a male body. A woman who has my attitudes toward sex could only be a lesbian.

If you don't like rap music, then don't listen to it! If you don't like homosexuality, then stay away from gay bars!

If you have a son, which would you rather hear?

"Dad, I need help. I have been arrested for grand-theft auto!"

-- or --

"Dad, I think I'm gay!"

You can raise a son with a healthy respect for property rights and human dignity if you set an appropriate example. You can not be so sure that he will be heterosexual. The first is a civic responsibility with a child. The second is no certainty. Remember, God made Adam and Steve too, and he may have made them gay!

Only restorationism can unify america around a single purpose, don't americans want to live in a that has a healthy political order, a populace united as friends and countrymen that is well equipped with dealing with the problems in the world rather than today's divided america with its crippled and disfunctional institutions and money-hungry politicians.

Only restorationism can unify america around a single purpose, don't americans want to live in a that has a healthy political order, a populace united as friends and countrymen that is well equipped with dealing with the problems in the world rather than today's divided america with its crippled and disfunctional institutions and money-hungry politicians.

Only restorationism this... Only restorationism that... where did you get this wackjob nonsense, and why do you think it would work? Why is sodomy "the worst perversity", but conquering and enslaving people (which is what "pacification" and "vassalization" is) a glorious task? What evidence is there that a desire to restore early Christendom on a fractious populace would work any better than the Taliban and other Salafist's desire to restore early Islam? What makes you think our "pacification" of the Middle East would work any better than our past occupations of the same? You do realize that Israelis and Indians aren't Christian, right? Are we going to conquer and convert them first? How exactly would a "communal-entrepreneurial" economy work? I want real arguments, not a bunch of assertions of gibbering nonsense. What makes you think that the military is the ideal organization to supervise society? You haven't even been in, you have no idea how it works. Have you investigated any of the other countries that were ruled by the military over the past century or so? How did they do?

Is this even an organized ideology, or just something you cobbled together out of whatever happened to be lying around your mother's basement? Do you have restorationist friends, and comrades? Or is that what this crazy belief system is really all about?

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

Only restorationism this... Only restorationism that... where did you get this wackjob nonsense, and why do you think it would work? Why is sodomy "the worst perversity", but conquering and enslaving people (which is what "pacification" and "vassalization" is) a glorious task? What evidence is there that a desire to restore early Christendom on a fractious populace would work any better than the Taliban and other Salafist's desire to restore early Islam? What makes you think our "pacification" of the Middle East would work any better than our past occupations of the same? You do realize that Israelis and Indians aren't Christian, right? Are we going to conquer and convert them first? How exactly would a "communal-entrepreneurial" economy work? I want real arguments, not a bunch of assertions of gibbering nonsense. What makes you think that the military is the ideal organization to supervise society? You haven't even been in, you have no idea how it works. Have you investigated any of the other countries that were ruled by the military over the past century or so? How did they do?

Is this even an organized ideology, or just something you cobbled together out of whatever happened to be lying around your mother's basement? Do you have restorationist friends, and comrades? Or is that what this crazy belief system is really all about?

Don't feed the troll.